His art training began with Roberto Sanbonet at the MASP School. In 1957, he joined the MAM-SP engraving atelier, then run by Lívio Abramo. In 1959, Amaral attended the Pratt Graphic Art Center, in New York, where he honed his skills with Shiko Munakata and W. Rogalsky.

For someone with a restless temperament like him, the discipline that the engraver’s work requires was pivotal to his training. The persistence needed in order to achieve mastery of different techniques showed him what it takes to be a professional, and in interacting with Lívio Abramo and Shiko Munakata he learned that for those masters of engraving, craft and creation, aesthetics and ethics merge into an approach to life. After releasing the engraving album O meu e o seu, he turned his attention primarily to painting.

At the 1971 Rio de Janeiro Modern Art Salon, he won the Foreign Travel Prize and relocated to New York, where he remained until 1981. Back in São Paulo, he worked out of a studio built in the Butantã neighborhood. Over the past five decades he had numerous solo exhibits of paintings and works on paper, in Brazil and in other countries, and was featured in seven different editions of the São Paulo Art Biennial, as well as in major group exhibits in Brazil, the United States, Europe, Japan, Korea, Canada and Latin America. His work is on display at museums in Brazil, Latin America, the United States, Europe and Japan.